“Thollem is a modern griot who has absorbed sounds from every place he has visited.”
– William Parker, from Conversations II (Rogue Art)
Thollem’s music is genre-bending, code-switching, omni-idiomatic, and intersectional. His music expresses the culmination of his life’s experiences in dialogue with the universe and fellow human beings. As a result of growing up in the culturally diverse SF Bay Area, his classical piano training, and his itinerant lifestyle since, Thollem’s interests, influences and inspirations range widely. He has spent most of his life performing and collaborating with hundreds of artists and communities throughout N. America and Europe and has released well over 100 albums on 27 different vanguard labels. Many pianists have inspired and influenced him from Scriabin to Monk, Scarlatti to Nina Simone, George Antheil, Rubén González, Mary Lou Williams, Prokofiev, Cecil Taylor, Henry Cowell, Sun Ra, Alicia de Larrocha, Professor Longhair, David Tudor, Marian McPartland, Glenn Gould, John Cage, Art Tatum, his contemporaries, and more. Thollem’s parents were both pianists, and his earliest memories were climbing up to play the insides of the piano.
“Thollem displays a chameleonic ability to adapt to suit whatever musical context presents itself…
There is more than one way to access the infinite.“
– Daniel Spicer, The Wire
“Listening to Thollem McDonas play the piano is an astonishing experience. He has an innate ability to compose transcendent music using the piano as his expressive voice and to explore the depth and range of the instrument like no one else. Thollem will take you on journeys across varied landscapes that flow effortlessly from one to the next — somehow emerging logically even in their unpredictability. Thollem creates a spectacular tapestry of different colored sounds reflecting his awareness, study and assimilation of countless influences. In Terry Riley’s own words, Thollem McDonas is ‘a true original.'”
– Joan Jeanrenaud, Composer, Cellist (Kronos Quartet 1978-98)
Infinite-Sum Game is a curated selection of Thollem’s solo piano performance in Palermo on May 13th, 2023, at Sala Perriera in the Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa. I have the deepest gratitude first and foremost to Lelio Giannetto and Valeria, as well as Gabri, Luca, Yuki, Angela, Curva Minore, SIO, and the greater Sicilian musical community. Some of these sounds and ideas can be heard on previous albums of mine, though each time is a unique variation and context. That said, I see this recording as the ultimate, and final, document of these works. It’s a great honor to have been embraced by the community in Palermo, to be able to spend so much time there, and to collaborate with so many artists who have become dear friends. And I am profoundly honored to be a participant in the historic, and continuing, legacy of ESP-Disk’.
“Thollem dives headlong into fascinating unforeseen and bold musical adventures that make him one of the most interesting pianists of the current improvised music genre…the result is the natural consequence of being intrinsically eclectic at heart.“
– Eduardo Chagas, TomaJazz (Portugal)
“Terry Riley met McDonas at a party at former Kronos cellist Joan Jeanrenaud’s house and listened in awe to the pianist’s CD on the drive home. ‘He’s absolutely mesmerizing,’ Riley says. ‘He’s very free. He starts with an idea and you watch him develop it in a way that unfolds like a beautiful flower, organically.’”
– SF Chronicle
“Thollem welds elements of jazz, blues and classical music into a mighty tower of song, then shatters his construct with the breathless bull-rush of a mystic improviser.“
– The River Front Times (St. Louis)
“A true tour de force of spontaneous music creation; a wonderful example of what happens when immense technique, boundless inspiration and highly focused artistic vision converge.“
– Dave Wayne, All About Jazz
“Half pianist, half hurricane”
– Steve Holtje, Culture Catch
SOLO PIANO ALBUMS
• The Reincarnation of Henri Herz (BandCamp, 2022)
• Thollem Solo (Astral Spirits, 2021)
• Your Letter Must Have Followed Me All Over The World (Two Rooms Records, 2018) – Microtonal piano music in collaboration with tuner Clem Fortuna
• Meeting At The Parting Place (Odradek Records, 2016)
• Dear Future, (WIld Silence, 2013) – Archival recordings of Thollem from the 70s and 80s
• Gone Beyond Reason To Find One (Edgetone Records, 2010)
• Racing The Sun, Chasing The Sun (Creative Sources, 2008)
• So Much Heaven, So Much Hell (Saravah, 2008)
• On Debussy’s Piano (BandCamp, 2008) – Thollem played 5 pieces Claude Debussy composed on the last piano he owned, 100 years prior to this recording.
• Poor Stop Killing Poor (Edgetone Records, 2007)
• Nuclear Bomb, Cave Painting (Pax Recordings, 2006)
for booking inquiries: contact@thollem.com
“One of the most captivating pianists working today”
– Rui Eduardo Paes, Jazz.pt
“His sound ecosystem is wet, like a rain forest dripping with life and death: shadowed in darkness but nourished by hot sunlight, teeming with crouching predators and bright birds exploding from the trees, their raucous bellows resonating and echoing through hollow canyons and caverns.”
– Tom Djll, Signal To Noise (US)
“Thollem’s keyboard flights unleash cascades of notes of seemingly impossible velocity and no matter where he goes tonally, it always seems right, fresh and satisfying. He should be on everyone’s listening list who appreciates great piano music. As an improviser, he inhabits a world uniquely his own, rhythmically, harmonically and formally. A true original.”
– Terry Riley
